I'm a card dolphin...

Not a shark, a dolphin... because I don't play ruthlessly (or particularly well), I'm more of a social card player. Last night me, my housemate and a friend from work went to a nice little wine bar in Southwark and had a glass of wine and played Samba. My housemate and I are Canasta lovers and were taught how to play by my Mum at an early age (which evidently meant we learnt a ton of rules which aren't real Canasta rules). My colleague wanted to teach us how to play Samba, which is apparently the next step up from Canasta. Canasta is a bit like Gin Rummy but with a hell of a lot more rules. You play with 2 packs of cards and the aim to make a Canasta (which is 7 of the same card or 4 with 3 wild cards). Samba uses 3 packs and introduces runs of 7 of the same suit and even more rules. In the run up to the game, my colleague was full of bravado and bluster about how he's never found a worthy opponent, beats everyone he plays and basically is absolutely-f*cking-brilliant-and-will-kick-our-asses-with-his-eyes-closed. Needless to say, he kicked our asses. In my defence, I was

a) drinking wine (and have become the worlds lightest light-weight when it comes to alcohol so was a tad tipsy are two white wine spritzers... yes, spritzers...)
b) was in Canasta mode all through the game so wasn't looking for Sambas and
c) was so busy chatting that I wasn't paying attention to what cards were being thrown out into the discard pile.

We will definitely have to play again soon and this time I shall be less dolphin-like and more shark-like ha ha.